School lunches: Seymour announces new funding to keep free lunches in schools

It’s out with quinoa and hummus and in with sandwiches and other lunchbox basics as Associate Education Minister David Seymour aims to save about $107 million a year with a new no-frills school lunches programme.

Seymour announced today that the school lunches programme would get $478m in the Budget – a top-up in funding to keep it going for the next two years. He has also announced that it will be extended to some low-decile early childhood education services.

The Government will review the programme before making decisions on its longer-term future.

In the meantime, primary schools can continue to use the model they currently use, but there will be changes for high schools as part of a bid to save $107m, some of which will be used to fund the ECE rollout.

The Ka Ora, Ka Ako school lunches programme was launched by Labour in 2019 and today feeds about 235,000 students at schools and kura facing some of the greatest socio-economic barriers. The Labour Government had allocated $323.4m for this year but it had not been funded beyond that.

Questions over the future of Ka Ora, Ka Ako were raised when Seymour was given ministerial responsibility over the policy. Seymour attacked the programme during the election campaign, describing it as “wasteful” spending and urging National to abandon it if they got into power.

David Seymour has announced $478 million in funding to keep the school lunches programme going until the end of 2026. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Today’s announcement provides a reprieve with $478m in funding keep the scheme going until the end of 2026, however there will be some changes to the way it operates.

For the rest of the year, the programme would remain as it was with all contracts and commitments in place. From next year, a new model will be established to feed students in years 7 and above and shave money off the cost. There will be no change in the way the programme operates for primary school students.

“The alternate provision model will use the government’s significant buying power to save money on food, give schools more flexibility on what they provide, and significantly reduce wastage,” Seymour said.

“Students will receive nutritious food that they want to eat. It will be made up of the sorts of food items thousands of mums and dads put into lunch boxes every day for their kids – forget quinoa, couscous, and hummus, it will be more like sandwiches and fruit.”

Seymour said while the top-up funding was in place in 2025 and 2026, a full redesign of the programme would be undertaken based on commercial experience, data, and evidence.

He spoke to reporters about the scheme this afternoon, and when asked why he considered foods like sushi unsuitable for the school lunches programme, he said: “If you don’t get that sushi’s woke, then I don’t know how to wake you up, but the key message here is that we are introducing the kinds of foods that are put in the lunchboxes of children, the other 75 percent of kids, who rely on their parents to send their lunch”.

Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said it was “concerning” that then lesson learned “about delivery, minimising waste and choosing foods that kids will eat is being thrown out the window for years 7 and up.”

“What we learnt from the current programme is when schools moved away from the model the Government is now mandating in secondary schools, waste reduced dramatically,” Tinetti said.

“Labour has been calling for the Government to commit to fully funding the school lunch programme and I am relieved to see David Seymour hasn’t got the cuts to the programme he campaigned on.”

Speaking to reporters this afternoon, Luxon described the government was committed to the programme and providing the time-limited funding.

“It’s got a review on it to make sure it’s actually working.”

However, Health Coalition Aotearoa has described the announced as a “new low” that will see high quality nutritious lunches replaced with largely processed snacks.

The coalition’s co-chair Professor Lisa Te Morenga said it was " a devastating lost opportunity to promote healthy eating habits that protect against chronic diseases that result in major health system costs.”

Although pleased the scheme would continue for primary school children, the coalition said this should not “come at the expense of healthy lunches for thousands of intermediate and high school students.”

Seymour also announced today that $4m from the money saved would fund a new food programme for children at low-equity, not-for-profit, community-based early childhood centres.

It would feed up to 10,000 children, he said.

“I am pleased to announce there will be a new targeted programme to provide food to 10,000 2-to-5-year-olds who attend low-equity, not-for-profit, community-based early learning services, funded using the cost savings found in the lunch programme,” he said.

“The first 1000 days are key to a child’s development. I am proud this Government can innovate to help even more children who need it.”

Before today, Seymour had been clear the programme needed to reduce costs. In May, he told Te Ao Māori News “smarter and cheaper” ways to fund the programme were needed.

“What we are going to do is cut expenditure elsewhere, put money into the school lunch programme and then do it better, smarter and cheaper.”

NZME’s BusinessDesk reported at the time that this “smarter and cheaper” version would possibly include packaged foods such as tinned fruit, muesli bars, bread and canned beans.